And Hell Follows With Him
by LadySilver
Summary: On the eve of the apocalypse, Death walks into a bar with a message. This is both exactly what happened, and not at all what happened.


_A/N: Thanks to htbthomas for all her help with this story. This was written for ishafel for the hlh_shortcuts exchange._

**And Hell Follows With Him**_  
_

The bar was already packed by the time Methos arrived. He blew in through the door with the winter wind behind him bringing a later promise of heavy snow and shook off the fine dusting that had already fallen from his shoulders. The air inside was hot and close, smelling of beer and too many people shoved too close together—the way all good parties should smell.

Pausing for a moment inside the doorway, he tugged his jacket off and slung it over his arm, mindful as always of keeping the sword concealed within its folds so no one would see it. Though the party goers might think the weapon was part of a costume, the risk wasn't worth taking. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was incite a riot.

Pre-recorded music thumped around him, loudly enough that the patrons had to shout to be heard over it. This only seemed to add to their enthusiasm. To get to the bar, he had to force his way through the crush of people, pushing a body aside here, stepping on a few toes there. Nothing new, really. No one seemed to care, their attention occupied, as it was, with packing in as much entertainment as they could before they ran out of time. In the crowd, he spotted a group of people bedecked in steampunk-esque outfits of metal and leather bouncing in an off-beat dance, another group in Hawai'ian print shirts and leis taking turns working through the biggest Hurricane he'd ever seen, and yet another group, more soberly dressed in their office clothes, arguing loudly about whether they should make plans for the next day or not.

Methos smiled to himself at these people, and at the memory of all the others he'd seen over the millennia, who'd chosen to celebrate, no matter how desperate the pretense was. He remembered far too many other occasions when the people had huddled themselves in churches and cowered their way to dawn with not even a decent hangover to show for their efforts. He had a feeling that he was going to enjoy this party-after he took care of some business first that really couldn't be put off any longer.

The bar area was a few decibels quieter somehow, just enough that Methos' approach didn't go completely unnoticed. Like the rest of the room, the bar was completely packed, except for one empty seat down at the end which was obviously on reserve, well-guarded by the man sitting next to it like a king overseeing a royal appointment. That's where Methos headed, knowing that the seat was on reserve for him.

Joe was tipped back on his stool, basking in the energy of the room, his eyes half-closed in satisfaction. The excitement of the evening had smoothed years off his face and seemed to thrum through his body. Despite wearing only a t-shirt and jeans, he looked more dressed up than many of those Methos had passed. Joe glanced over as Methos approached, any surprise well-hidden, and gestured toward the empty stool, as expected. "If it isn't the man of the hour," he commented, as Methos slid up next to him. "I figured I'd see you here tonight."

"MacLeod told you I was coming?" Methos asked. He tucked his jacket up under the bar, using the sword as a sort of impromptu coat-rack, then adjusted how he was sitting to help disguise the fact that it was there at all. The seat was cold and the spread of bar in front of him clear and clean, and Methos briefly wondered if Joe really would have kept this seat open all night if Methos hadn't shown up, then realized it was a moot point.

"Nah," Joe said, confirming Methos' deduction. "You're just becoming predictable in your old age."

"Me?" Methos touched his chest in mock offense. "I'm full of surprises."

"I'm sure you are," Joe countered. He gestured a bartender over and indicated for Methos to get a beer. "Not this time, though." The brown bottle appeared on the counter almost immediately, no question at all about what kind would be preferred. Methos shook his head, tempted for a moment to send it back and order anything else just to throw Joe off, then decided it wasn't worth it to pick his fight there. He also didn't miss how Joe waved the bartender away before he could ask about a tab; so drinks were on the house, then. It looked like Joe was going to be the one pulling the surprises on this night. That would not do.

"Good turnout, tonight," Methos commented, aiming, for now, for the neutral. He picked up the beer carefully. His hands were still cold from the outside and the chill of the bottle against his skin was almost, but not quite, uncomfortable. "Do you think they know that there's nothing to worry about?" He tipped his head toward the crowd, listening for a moment to the splinters of cheers and conversation that broke off from the mass of sound.

Joe watched the crowd with him, nodding along to the beat of the music. "I think people will take any excuse to blow off a little steam," he concluded, turning back. "It's good for business, so who am I to say they can't?" His own bottle sat glistening with moisture in front of him. It looked like it hadn't been drunk from at all since it had been put there. Joe touched it, but only to spin it inside the water ring it had left on the wooden bar surface. "So, what brings you out to my lowly little bar tonight?"

"You don't already know?" Methos asked, a little surprised that MacLeod really hadn't prepped Joe for Methos' arrival. If Joe hadn't known and he'd still kept the stool open, then Methos really was slipping into a rut, and that wouldn't do at all.

"I said you're predictable. I didn't say I was omnipotent," Joe replied. "On tonight of all nights, I knew you'd show up. The irony would be too much for you to pass up. Now that you're here, I figure there's more going on than a casual joke. So, is there something I should know?"

Methos frowned a little at Joe's obvious fishing. It felt off, a hardening of Joe's eyes, a tensing of his mouth suggesting that he was searching for a different answer than one he was going to get. "MacLeod asked me to check in with you. He said he's worried about you." What he'd actually said had been worded much stronger than that, and had been phrased as a demand rather than a request. If it had been about anyone except for Joe, Methos would have told MacLeod to stuff it and would have re-disappeared for a few years for good measure.

Joe's shoulders slumped at the answer and he returned to toying with his beer bottle. The thing was going to get warm before he got around to drinking it, at this rate. "He thinks I should be slowing down, doesn't he?" Joe asked in that way where he wasn't asking a question at all.

Methos looked critically at the man for a moment, taking in the marks of passing years. His hair had gone nearly pure white and the lines around his eyes had deepened and spread. On the surface, there was nothing unexpected. The bigger concern was what Methos couldn't see. Joe'd had a heart attack scare a few weeks before and MacLeod had mentioned issues with both high blood pressure and high cholesterol. "He thinks that for someone who was supposed to have retired ten years ago, you've done a poor job."

Joe snorted out a laugh and _finally _took a swig of his beer. "What can I say? I like to keep busy."

"There's a difference between keeping busy and running yourself into the ground, Joe. You have the bar and your music. Maybe it's time to step back and enjoy them. The Watchers can get along just fine without you." The unspoken _you're not as young as you used to be _hung clearly in the air, both of them stepping neatly over both the phrase and its implications, and that particular irony as well.

"Maybe they could have," Joe replied, "but time's are changing. They're going to need me more than ever. Hell, they're going to need every trained Watcher they can field. They might even be desperate enough to call Adam Pierson back up."

That sent Methos' eyebrows up. The Watchers calling a known Immortal back to serve? Were Joe's health concerns more than just physical? He spun on his stool to get a better look at the aging man, but saw nothing of the confusion that often marked memory problems. "Any particular reason?"

"I've seen a few reports," Joe said. He went silent, his mouth pursing like he wasn't sure how much he should say.

Methos rolled his head to ease the tension building in his shoulders and leaned forward onto the bar, propping himself on his forearms-just a guy, hanging out with a friend, no pressure. He wanted to wait Joe out, not push him. That the man's Watcher's oath had long been more malleable than intended still didn't make it easier for Joe to break it anew each time he did. And this time was clearly one of the more difficult ones.

Joe peered out over the bar, watching the bartenders deal with a sudden crush of customers who all needed refills and fresh drinks to help them make the march to midnight. The bartenders moved with well-practiced ease and Joe observed them with an admiring eye even as his expressions twisted through an internal argument about how much to say. At last the first wave of the crowd diminished and Joe said, "A couple people you know lost their heads this week."

Methos' back tensed and he felt his expression go blank, all pretense of comfort gone. Joe's phrasing was setting off every alarm in Methos' body. Usually he learned what he need to know through his own network of spies and informants and internet discussion groups who didn't know that they were working as spies and informants, and here Joe was being all cagey about something Methos should have already known but didn't. "I've known a lot of people," Methos commented to cover his concern about _which _people had lost their heads.

Joe waited until the bartender drifted away to deal with a new group of partygoers before he finished relaying his information. He delivered the names with an uncharacteristic flatness.

Hearing them dredged up memories that were better off rotting at the bottom of the ocean, but Joe didn't need to know that. The less said about Methos' real history, the better for everyone, as they had so well learned. Methos hid his reaction behind a swig from his beer, then reiterated, "I've known a lot people."

"So, these guys didn't mean anything to you? They were old. At least a couple thousand years."

"Old is relative, Joe. Like I said, I've known a lot of people. I can't keep track of everyone I've crossed paths with."

Joe studied him for a moment as if debating on whether to call out the lie, then blinked hard and changed tacks. "For those two to have been taken out so close together…Word is that the Gathering is starting." Joe shook his head, as if his conclusion was the only possible one and he had to resign himself to it.

"The word is wrong," Methos countered, no longer lying even a little. "Your Watchers are trying to see a pattern where there isn't one. Must be something in the air." He shot a significant glance over his shoulder at the crowd, most of them more than half in their cups already.

On the far side of the room, a group of revelers were loudly stumbling their way through the chorus of a briefly-popular, yet often timely song.

The swell of noise in the room ebbed just long enough for their shouted, "And I feeeeel fiiiiiine!" to ring out. Someone cheered and the bar broke into applause and calls for a toast that quickly collapsed into a fit of laughter and demands for another round. Whether the request was for beer or the song, Methos didn't know.

His accusation wasn't lost on Joe. "You really think my Watchers are jumping to conclusions?"

The beer was mostly gone now, so Methos finished it off and dropped the empty onto the bar before bringing out his real surprise. "There is no Gathering. It's a myth."

Joe's mouth opened and closed, no words emerging. He swallowed, cleared his throat, then passed a wrinkled, though still strong, hand over his eyes. "You're kidding me. No? You're not kidding? All the time we've known each other and you couldn't be bothered to clear up the record before now?"

"It didn't matter before now," Methos replied simply. "There wasn't any reason to bring it up. Besides, I told you I'm full of surprises." He smiled a little to cut the sting.

"You're really telling me that the Gathering is just another end of the world prophecy?"

"_Prophecy _is too forgiving of a world, but yeah. Basically."

Joe shook his head. "How can you be sure? No, let me guess. You're the one who came up with the story."

"Actually, it was Kronos. Perpetual war, perpetual chaos. Set your opponents against each other so that they won't team up on you. Honestly, I'm surprised anyone took to it at all, but they did. And the other Immortals _believed _it, Joe. They honestly thought it meant something." He was shaking his head by the end, still unable to accept how quickly the other Immortals had accepted what Kronos had told them and how easily they took to passing the story on, especially given how few and far between Immortals had been in those days.

"And you just let your kind kill each other over a myth?"

"People kill each other over myths all the time. Why not this one?" Methos licked his lips, pulling a quick face at the thought of how hard it was to change people who were set in their ways, and how much the two who had finally died had contributed to that setting before he put what he could into words: "Don't think I haven't tried to stop it. If people want to keep believing, that's their business."

Methos shrugged, dismissing any further responsibility for what the man he'd called brother had done. "Myths have a way of traveling and thriving once they're set loose; it's out of my control now." He picked up the new bottle that had appeared in front of him and wondered how much the bartender was really paying attention to what was going on between the two men, then decided that if Joe wasn't worried, he wouldn't be. "So, now you know the truth and you can stop worrying that you're going to miss anything important."

"I still can't believe you never told me. Never told MacLeod."

"I told you I'm-"

"Full of surprises. I know. Just for that one, you're picking up the tab-"

Methos started to nod in acquiescence before realizing that Joe wasn't done dishing out his punishment.

"-For the whole bar."

"Dawson!"

Joe flashed a smug smile at him, a reminder that though he might be mortal, he was still a worthy opponent.

"Fine," Methos grumbled. "And while we're on the topic of paying for things, you'll want to start calling up some cabs. All your guests here should really get home before it's too late."

"Too late?" Joe echoed. He glanced at the clock over the bar, which showed that midnight was still a ways off, and closing time wasn't even a fantasy yet.

"There's a blizzard coming in. Three to four feet by mid-morning, if the forecast is right, with more coming in over the next couple days."

"Three to four _feet_!" Joe exclaimed. "This part of the country never gets storms like that."

"It's a good thing you laid in all those end of the world supplies," Methos mused. "You did plan ahead, right? Yes, of course you did. You're going to need them. I hope you don't mind a roommate for a few days," he added, in _his _way where it also was not a question. As for the timing of his visit, it wouldn't take Joe long to figure out that Methos had done some planning ahead, too.

"Three to four feet?" Joe repeated once more, disbelief coloring his voice. "Are you sure?" He glanced at one of the bartenders for confirmation. The bartender pressed his lips into a thin smile and nodded before slipping into the back room where it was quieter and the phone was located.

"Think about it this way," Methos continued, "You'll get a couple of days of enforced vacation, and you'll have me around to help you figure out how to rebalance your life."

"And I'm sure you'll be right there offering advice from all your years of wisdom," Joe replied with more than a little trace of sarcasm. "Roommates, retirement, what else are you going to throw at me? I already know that you snore."

"I think I'm out of surprises for a little while," Methos answered, not even touching the last one.

"Somehow I doubt that."

Picking up his new beer, Methos slid off the stool and surveyed the merry-making status of the room. Business was over, now it was time to celebrate. Anything else could wait. He and Joe would have plenty of time for a proper catch up when they were stranded inside over the next few days. "Just remember, Joe." Methos turned back, holding his bottle out for Joe to clink his against in a belated toast. "It's not the end of the world."


End file.
